Over the Weekend: Fall Garden Preparation!

This weekend I tackled two major garden tasks that were all about preparing the garden for fall. Task one was planting a few seeds in the vegetable garden. That task was fairly quick and easy to do in my circular raised bed. The other beds are mess still with summer vegetables going everywhere. I need to get out to the vegetable garden and cut back everything to a much more controlled state but haven’t had the time to get to it yet.

Cleaning out the vegetable garden is one of those garden chores I dread for two reasons. One because it really is a chore and two because I hate to cut back anything that might have flowers or fruit still attached.  It needs done but I don’t want to lose out on those tomatoes that haven’t come yet! In the end I’ll wind up taking a more moderate approach and just pull out the plants that absolutely should go.  I need more space for fall vegetables so it’s a necessity. On Saturday I planted seeds for spinach, lettuce, and radishes. I still want to get beets, carrots, and a few other cool season vegetables planted very soon. I plan to construct PVC hoop houses over the raised beds to extend my harvest well into the late fall and hopefully through winter.

The other fall garden task I tackled this weekend was the lawn. More specifically seeding the lawn.  Each year I overseed the grass with a fresh variety of grass seed.  Lawns tend to be a monoculture which is another fancy word from saying it’s all the same!  What’s bad about a monoculture is diseases that effect one plant will effect them all.  I try to diversify the lawn with different varieties of grass seed each year. There isn’t a huge difference between them but eventually the more climate appropriate grasses will win out. At least that’s what I hope.  I cut the grass on Friday and sowed a cool season fescue on Sunday.  As you can see from the pictures I had a little help.  It takes a real man to mow with a pink lawnmower!